What Kind of Faith Do You Own?

Artist Spotlight

Ew. WordPress has changed and it’s not as nice as it used to be. Maybe eventually I’ll get used to it.

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One of the musicians that I love the most - some will know - runs a close second to Switchfoot. In some ways, actually she surpasses them in Tuuli’s Charts.

Her name is Brooke Fraser, and she’s one of the worship leaders for Hillsong Church in Australia (sadly, I’ll never catch her at the one in London…) but she’s also released a couple CDs apart from them. She writes her own songs - and you have probably been singing at least one without knowing it…

I see the King of Glory
Coming down the clouds with fire….

She wrote Hosanna.

So yeah, she’s one of the ladies I try to learn from - there aren’t that many female worship leaders within my own circle of influence… She’s also really funny. Anyway. Here’s one of my favourite songs from her album (that is both decent quality and shows her humour..)*

And her voice is incredible, but she doesn’t show it off when she leads worship - her words: “We’re not hear to show off, we’re here to worship God.”

That ends the short, secret peep into Tuuli’s iTunes 25 Most Played…

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*If I’d been able to find a decent copy, I’d have put ‘C.S. Lewis Song‘ in instead. Or ‘Hymn‘. Or ‘Lead Me to the Cross‘, or ‘Albertine‘ - a song about the Rwandan genocide - or ‘Love is Waiting’.

Post-MEC Round-up

So, I promised before MEC to let you know how it all went and what kind of coolness came up out of it.

Well, as you might know, I was part of the committee team and one-third responsible for the worship. Leading up to the conference this largely meant assigning people to be in charge of worship for the various talk sessions, planning my worship set for Monday’s combined session and helping to write an MEC theme song.

During the conference, I was mostly delegating. I had so many willing hands and it was awesome how everyone I asked was more than happy to set up the projector, or carry a laptop from one room to another, or whatever. In fact, I don’t really feel like I did anything much at all, except hang out, chat with people and click through slides. Fantastic. I really enjoyed talking with people I’d never met before, and especially loved my small group. River rules!

But I wasn’t just there to enjoy myself or work - I also wanted to see what God had set out for me to learn as well, and wanted to be sure I wasn’t distracted when I should be listening out for it - so one of the many good things about being a small group ‘leader’ (I felt more like a discussion-invigilator) was that I had to take notes so we could discuss the talk.

In the last talk I was highly unprepared and had left my handbook up in my room, so I was taking notes on the back of one of my chord sheets. Writing them up in the handbook after the conference, I really felt God hammering home the main points that I had written down:

How to Live a Life of Legacy:

Be faithful - know God’s promises, and live by them.

- To accomplish this, I decided to set myself the task of memorising verses where God has promised us something. The next day, my devotionals led me to this one:

Fear of men will prove to be a snare, but whoever
trusts in God will be kept safe.
Psalm 29:25

That was an awesome reminder to always show God’s love, regardless of how ‘weird’ I might come across. For me, that’s normal. Haha.

Be obedient - when rebuked, change; when sent, go.

- Here I decided that I would be kept accountable by a friend when God says I’m messing up somewhere, so that I can be sure to change. It also meant that when I felt the small tug to talk to someone, to do it - again, by being faithful and leaning on promises like Psalm 29:25.

Be available - Actively go where people have a need, and invest time, energy and resources.

- For me, this came down to making sure I don’t avoid opportunities to talk with people, because sometimes I’d rather not have to have the hassle of making conversation with people. It also meant giving the little I have even if I’ll never be ‘repaid’.

I also added a fourth one for myself:

Be disciplined - To seek God and run the race regardless of the weather.

This, I suppose, is a mixture of the first three, but also a reminder to myself that I’ll always need to depend on something outside of myself - and not my own resources or emotions or ability - to obey God.

So far, I haven’t been in Birmingham to ‘test’ my new knowledge yet, but I’ve been at home in London where I’ve more than enough opportunities to help out and bless my family. So yeah! Awesome

Give me an M! Give me an E!..

Off to MEC soon!

I’ll let you know how it went after.

Off Again This Summer

As some of you know, I headed over to the Middle East last summer for two weeks and S Korea for one week.

This summer, after a lot of thought, prayer and discussion I’ve decided to go again, but will spend the entire three weeks in the country (last time the S Korean conference was a one-off.)

Two things:

One: as you may have read from my last post, my last trip wasn’t a ’success’ in the way that you could define success. Instead, the best thing that came out of it was me realising just how ineffective I was on my own merit, and how much I needed to depend on God. This was the beginning of an amazing growth spurt in my relationship with God, so in that sense, it wasn’t a failure.

Two: since then I don’t feel I’ve become any more gifted or experienced than I was then, I was a bit skeptical about going. I also didn’t feel that I had a particular calling to go there, but through various conversations and discussions I began to realise that it didn’t matter what I felt if God was sending me there.

And God gave me clear signs along the way that I should be considering it. So, 3 days before the deadline, I printed out my application, got my reference form filled in, and posted it the day before.

I’m feeling excited, but also a bit apprehensive: as always, this kind of thing proves a challenge for me, and it’ll be an uphill struggle in some places, I’m sure, but then: God taught me an important lesson last time and I would be an idiot to forget it now.

So yes, those are my plans

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On another note, something I’ve learned that’s AWESOME:

The Bible does not tell us to pray for humility, as if we should expect God suddenly to break through our pride and fill us with humble feelings. Instead, the Scripture teaches us to humble ourselves - to face pride and self-satisfaction honestly whenever they rear their heads - and then to repent of them and take whatever action is necessary to be humble before God… Pride is deadly, and Satan will manipulate it every time to thwart God’s work in us and through us.
- Bill Graham, p 94, ‘The Greatest Lesson I’ve Ever Learned’ by Bill Bright (ed.)